Month: March 2011

Karl Case, whose name is practically immortalized as co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index, said in September that he thought the housing market may be near a bottom.

In a paper he presented at the Brookings Institution, the Wellesley emeritus professor of economics observed that nine of 20 metro areas had shown price improvement and the relationship between incomes and house prices was nearing a level that occurred at the end of previous housing downturns.

Aside from the fact that many readers like to keep up with auction news, I once had an experience that seems to have hooked me on the subject.

When I was a writer for Money magazine in the early 80s, real estate auctions were rare enough that I was assigned to cover one. The auction in question was for unsold units near Vail, Colo. Continue reading →

Christine Haughney hits that proverbial nail on the head in her latest column in the New York Times. In it, she takes on words and phrases that evoke discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.

One commonly encountered phrase portrays a property as “perfect for “empty nesters.” That’s like saying children are a no-no. And that’s against the law. “Fisherman’s retreat” — the Lincoln Tunnel? — also is questionable. Women need not apply?

Other words and phrases Haughney that flags include “bachelor pad,” “near churches” and “play area.”

Two apartments that I recently visited had me lingering with unconcealed appreciation, practically awestruck, for their architecture, not just their décor.

I’m not denying that the look of the units had to have underscored the impression the bones conveyed. But so daring and dramatic was the interior architecture that, to my mind, the apartments went beyond winning to wow.

Let me tell you about one of them, which happens to be the most expensive of the pair by far–$5.2 million. Continue reading →

New York City’s population reached a record high for a 10-year census of 8,175,133, according to the 2010 count released on Thursday, but it fell far short of the official forecast.

Mayor Bloomberg immediately challenged the Census Bureau’s finding, saying it shortchanged the city by as many as 225,000 people.

He said it was “inconceivable” that Queens grew by only 1,343 people since 2000 and suggested that the profusion of apartments listed as vacant in places such as Flushing and in a swath of southwest Brooklyn meant the census missed many hard-to-count immigrants.

Here’s your chance to catch up with news included to inform, enlighten and perhaps even entertain you. To read aboutThe Big Apple, check out the other of today’s posts and look for Out and About early next week.